5 Easy Strategies to Overcome Your Fear of Failure

“Failure is ultimately very liberating. Once you come out the other side of it, you just might have faced one of your biggest fears and lived. The other side of failure is a big elimination of fear of failure. Trust me, that is an amazing gift.”

Julie Wainwright

Your biggest roadblock is likely to be the fear of failure. It has stopped you countless times and limited your life immensely. This fear stops you from trying anything that you don’t believe you can be successful at very quickly.

Unfortunately, accomplishing nearly anything worthwhile will have a fair amount of failure along the way. If you fear failure, you’re underachieving. Guaranteed. At some stage you are going to have to overcome your fear of failure.

Consider these signs that you might fear failure:

1. You’re not aggressively and enthusiastically pursuing your goals.

Hopefully, you have at least a few goals you’d like to achieve. Are you excitedly pursuing them each day, or are you finding excuses to “wait until tomorrow” to take an action? Your hesitancy is a sign that you fear failing.

2. You’re obsessed with being perfect.

A need to be perfect at anything is a sign that you fear failure. This is a common excuse to avoid doing something. It sounds noble in your head, but it’s just an avoidance technique. There are very few things in life that need to be perfect.

3. You procrastinate or use other means of sabotaging yourself.

We can unintentionally create circumstances that make it impossible to be successful or to even begin getting to work. These become convenient excuses for our lack of effort and progress. Ask yourself why you sabotage yourself? What is the purpose?

Overcome your fear of failure and live the life you were meant to live with these techniques:

1. Keep positive outcomes in mind.

If you only had positive expectations and never considered a negative outcome, you couldn’t be afraid. Spend a few minutes each day imagining the outcome you desire.

2. Imagine the worst that can happen.

Just one time, allow yourself to consider the worst that can happen. Is it really that bad? What could you do to handle that situation? If you have positive expectations and confidence that you can handle the worst outcome, you’ll feel confident to move ahead.

3. Stay present.

Aside from imagining positive outcomes for a few minutes each day, keep your mind grounded in the present moment. What is the next step you need to take? Do what needs to be done next and keep your mind on that.

○ If you’re focused on your current work, you can’t be worrying about what might happen later.

4. Acknowledge the positive aspects of failure:

○ You learn something each time you fail and get better at whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.

○ You become more resilient to failure. Each failure teaches you that failing isn’t nearly as terrifying as you thought it would be.

○ You’re actively living your life instead of playing it safe. This is great for your confidence, self-esteem, and overall life experience.

5. Hang around successful people.

When you hang around successful people, you realize that they do more and fail more than most people. You’ll also notice that they don’t worry about failing. They give their best effort, fail, readjust, and try again. They just keep going until they have the results they desire. If you want to do the same and achieve the same results, overcome your fear of failure.

How much has a fear of failure negatively impacted your life? It’s probably a lot more than most of us care to admit!

You can accomplish some pretty amazing things if you’re willing to deal with this fear. Take the bull by the horns and begin working on your goals each day. Avoid allowing a silly fear to taint your life experience. If you learn to overcome your fear of failure you are closer to success.